Case Study #1

Alignment of Major Learning Outcome #2: Research Skills with State Wide CSU Information Competency Standards and ProSeminar

January and , 2002

Day One:
We began the case study meeting by reviewing what the Institute for Human Communication (HCOM) had actually tentatively decided at the September Information Competency Retreat. There we had decided that we should have built-in assessment of MLO 2 (Research Skills) in Proseminar and that we should also align all of the information competencies in this course, with special attention to the technology information competencies. With expansion of the course to 6 units, we should be able to accomplish this goal.

We then discussed trying to get Graduating Learning Outcomes (GLO) approval from the Technology ULR Committee for this course. In the discussion, we mentioned that the course has to both be a basic "tech tools" type of course for those students who have not yet taken Tech Tools, but that it also has to be a course that concentrates on teaching students the types of technology applicable to Humanities and Interdisciplinary research.

We talked about working diligently with the Tech ULR committee, perhaps throughout the Spring and Fall) to get the syllabus and course approved. Because of important workload issues, we do yet know who will be responsible for guiding the course through the ULR attainment process.

The library faculty are committed to aiding us with the non-tech info comp parts of the syllabus. This collaboration is already working with proseminar as it stands. However, HCOM will have to work toward finding resources to aid in acquiring instructional tech assistance for the course and for development of the course.

We established preliminary goals for the development proseminar (these are not yet written as student learning outcomes, but rather as our own development outcomes):

1. To integrate information competencies inclusive of technology skills into proseminar.
2. To provide the course with resources that will offer students a sound understanding of the histories, definitions, evolution, and practices of Interdisciplinary programs.
3. To articulate for students the precise type(s) of Interdisciplinarity that HCOM teaches.
4. To design research activities that will enable students to apply the skills they're learning to a Humanities problem through the MLO structure.
5. To create the course so that students have opportunities to explore which MLOs seem to be the most important ones to solve PARTICULAR research problems.
6. To develop the course in such a way that we often articulate to students the importance of the three pillars: Communication, Culture, and Creativity
7. To maintain some sort of gathering of the HCOM faculty for proseminar. We discussed perhaps having two faculty from different MLOs or concentrations discuss/argue the ways they would approach a particular interdisciplinary issue.
8. To articulate within the course the ways in which the HCOM major reflects the vision statement and the overall structure of the university.
9. To respect throughout the course the different needs of the homegrown and the transfer students.
10. To introduce the concept of Service Learning and its importance to Interdisciplinary study.

We discussed three types of resources that would be important to structuring the course around Interdisciplinary Studies:

• a "text" that defines Interdisciplinary studies, one that tells what ID is.
• a "text" that demonstrates the integration of interdisciplinary approaches
• a "text" that discusses the debates in ID studies.

We would like for all of these texts to be Humanities based.

Some potential assignment ideas that arose for us include:

• We would pose a problem apropos the Humanities and have students research the problem from a variety of Interdisciplinary approaches (perhaps through the context of each concentration).
• We could have the students take an assignment from one of their other HCOM courses and research the same question through another ID approach.
• We must have the students complete a technology assignment.

Homework:

We each took on homework assignments:

Pam ~
1) will bring Tech ULR outcomes
2) will bring some Interdisciplinary texts
3) will bring the Tech Tools syllabus

Ilene ~
1) will bring ID texts that employ integrated essays
2) will think about potential assignments

Qun ~
1) will bring the proseminar syllabus
2) will bring potential assignments

Renee ~
1) will bring outcomes for MLO 2

Day Two:
Worked on developing the syllabus.

Decisions Made:

Curriculum Developed: